Abstracts of the History of Science Society 2004 Austin Meeting 18 ...

Aristotle’s Rejection of Resurrection
In the De Anima I.3, Aristotle essays a little argument to the effect that the soul does not set the body in motion in virtue of its own
motion (406b20-23). For, he maintains, if the soul sets the body in motion by virtue of its own motion, then the soul could undergo
motion in space. However, if the soul can undergo motion is space, then it would be possible for it to go out and come back into bodies.
And if the soul can go out of and return to bodies, then dead animals would be resurrected (anastasthai). But the resurrection of
dead animals is an absurd consequence. The soul, therefore, does not set the body in motion in virtue of its own motion. Whatever the
merits of this argument,I aim to understand why resurrection would have seemed absurd to Aristotle (at the time of his writing the De
Anima). Is the claim grounded by empirical or conceptual means? Is this a datum of experience, or a decucible consequence, given the
essential nature of matter? Aristotle, I argue, seems to have recourse to both approaches.
Cynthia Klestinec, Georgia Institute of Technology (cynthia.klestinec@lcc.gatech.edu)
Friday, 19-Nov-04, 1:30 - 3:10 PM - Texas Ballroom VII
Fabricius and the Dramatic Rhetoric of Anatomical Inquiry
Working in Padua and Venice, Fabricius of Aquapendente published the results of his anatomical research in the early 17th century. As
Andrew Cunningham has shown, Fabricius drew both his methodology and his topics of research from Aristotle’s biological works, pursuing
an Aristotelian project of anatomy. This paper will extend Cunningham’s analysis by showing that Fabricius drew not only from
Aristotle’s biological works, but also from Aristotle’s Poetics and the numerous commentaries on the Poetics that circulated in the Veneto
region in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This body of works brought education and pleasure to the fore, influencing
Fabricius’s textual and oral presentations. This paper will provide an account of Fabricius’ dramatic rhetoric—his use of ‘beginning,
middle and end’ to organize and develop anatomical process—as well as an alternative history of wonder. This paper will consider the
possibility that wonder and its cognates (surprise, admiration) derive not only from various philosophical traditions (as Katharine Park
and Lorraine Daston have explained), but also from a dramatic tradition that had recently been energized by the publication and translation
of Aristotle’s Poetics.
Robert E. Kohler, University of Pennsylvania (rkohler@sas.upenn.edu)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 3:30 - 5:30 PM - Texas Ballroom VI
American Museums and Natural History Collecting
The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a period of large-scale biological survey and collecting of animal and plant species, especially
by large civic museums. Hundreds or thousands of expeditions were dispatched. Unlike earlier natural-history collecting, expeditionary
collecting was designed to be complete and comprehensive — natural history made into an exact science of the field. Initially,
museums undertook collecting expeditions less for science per se than to qcquire material for their new and immensely popular habitat
dioramas. Expeditions served both science and the cultural consumption. Curators became field workers and led expeditions, but
depended for funding and logistics on diverse local and lay participants.
Sofie Lachapelle, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (lachapelle@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 1:30 - 3:10 PM - Texas Ballroom VII
The Prophylaxis and Treatment of Endemic Cretinism by Nineteenth-Century Alienists
Cretinism is understood today as a condition in which a lack in thyroid hormone (caused by a congenital defect, diseased thyroid, or lack
of iodine) results in mental retardation and serious problems associated with physical development (dwarfism and thick, flabby skin of
a yellowish color). Cretinism is found in its endemic form in mountainous regions and valleys, where endemic goiter is severe. The
condition has been recognized for centuries in the Alpine villages of today’s Switzerland, but it is in the seventeenth century that it began
to be more seriously considered. Interest in natural history and curiosities led to a number of traveling accounts in which cretins were
mentioned. During the nineteenth century, more methodical surveys of the various regions where cretinism was prevalent were performed.
The condition and the particular environmental settings in which it occurs became better known. The causes of cretinism were
often seen in climatic factors (the stagnation of a corrupted air, heat, atmospheric humidity), geological formations, unknown toxic
agents in drinking water or food, dirt, or wretched conditions. Preventive measures, sometimes contradictory, were proposed to reduce
the occurrence of cretinism (prolonged exposure to the sun, shading, drainage, cleaning of the village, relocation, segregation in sanatoriums
or asylums, and iodine intake). As the construction of new roads, the implementation of a railway system, and improvements
in the preservation of fish provided the inland with marine products, the incidence of endemic cretinism receded. Although the use of
iodine had been recommended throughout the previous century, it is not until the beginning of the twentieth century that the iodinedeficiency
hypothesis was accepted as causal to both goiter and cretinism. This paper will look at the preventive measures and the treatments
for cretinism promoted by a particular group, the alienists, in the context of nineteenth-century public health innovations.
Larry Lagerstrom, University of California, Davis (lagerstrom@ucdavis.edu)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Texas Ballroom VI
Applied History of Science: The Case of Creation and Evolution
In the 1986 HSS Distinguished Lecture, John Heilbron put forth a manifesto for applying the history of science to general education,